1. Technical Field
Embodiments relate to applications and the World Wide Web.
2. Background Art
Web browsers may use a number of protocols and standards to obtain or manage content flow. Most browsers primarily use hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) to fetch content and web pages. Web pages are located using a uniform resource locator (URL), which identifies where the web page may be found. Web pages may be retrieved using the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer holding the web page content. In order to be more memorable and human friendly, an IP address or hierarchy may be represented by a hostname (such as www.google.com). A hostname is a domain name that has one or more associated IP addresses. Hostnames and other information associated with domain names may be resolved or translated to IP addresses using the Domain Name System (DNS). This DNS resolution system is sometimes referred to as the “phone book” for the Internet.
DNS resolution requires either looking in a local computer cache for a DNS resolution or querying a set of DNS servers over the network. DNS utilizes authoritative DNS resolvers to help map domain names to IP addresses. Multiple DNS resolvers may be used in order to avoid having all the information in a single, central DNS server.
DNS resolution may add extra latency, which can cause users some discomfort. FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary system 100 that performs DNS resolution. When network traffic is required to connect to a content server 140 from browser 110, User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packets are sent to a DNS resolver, and eventually a UDP response is provided. If a DNS resolution is not selected from a local cache, such as DNS cache 110, DNS resolution is requested from internet intermediate DNS server 150, authoritative DNS server 160 or main DNS server 170 over network 130. There is a latency time required to request DNS resolution from a DNS server. For example, the latency cost for an HTTP page load is at least a) a DNS resolution; and b) a round trip to establish a TCP/IP connection. The latency cost for an HTTPS (secure HTTP) connection is a) a DNS resolution; b) a round trip to establish a TCP/IP connection; and c) a round trip to perform an SSL handshake and establish a shared key.